Mill appliance.



Patented Aug. 20', I90l.

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c b N, m n m w A W m n m r o n P o m P s n n o u u T E. E. E. MEARS. MILL APPLIANCE. (Apphcatwn filed May 3 1901 (No Mudel.)

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To all whom it may concern.-

UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

ELMER E. E. MEARS, MUNI IALL, PENNSYLVANIA, ASSIGNOR OF ONE- H ALF TO GEORGIE M. HOUPT, OF MANSFIELD, OHIO.

MILL APPLIANCE.

SPECIFICATION forming part Of Letters Patent No. 681,065, dated August 20, 1901. Application filed May 3,1901. Serial No. 58,629. (No model.)

Be it known that I, ELMER E. E. MEARS, a

citizen of the United States, residing at Munhall, Allegheny county, Pennsylvania, have invented certain new and useful Improve ments in Mill Appliances, of which the following is a specification, that will enable those skilled in the art to which my invention pertains to make and use the same, reference being had to the accompanying drawings.

My invention relates to mill appliances for handling metallic ingots or slabs, especially them from heating-furnaces.

for introducing them into and withdrawing Its objects are to enable the appliance to engage an ingot or slab firmly and securely without the neces- 1 sity for extreme accuracyas to the points of contact of the jaws of the gripper on the ini got and with a minimum depth of bite of the jaws intotheingot, and therefore small consequent damage to the ingot, and to increase thedurability of the jaws; and it consists of such a formation of the jaws of the gripper as will increase their durability and efficiency andenable them to securely grasp an ingot between them andby reason of their long contact-surfaces to hold the ingot from rolling after being grasped by them and on its passage into or from a furnace and to engage it securely without gouging deeply into its surface. a r

The accompanying drawings showmy invention in the forms now considered most dosirable by me, but changes in the details and proportions thereof and in the manner of their application might be made without the exercise of invention by a skilful mechanic without departing from the spirit of my invention asset forth in the claims at the end of this specification. 1

Figure l is a perspective view of an ingotgripping appliance with jaws constructed in accordance withmy invention. Fig. 2 is a side elevation of the movable or sliding jaw. Fig. 3 is a plan view of thefixed jaw at the end of the extension-beam or jib. Fig. 4 is a plan view of the same. V Fig. 5 is a perspec tive view of an ingot, illustrating how it may jaw at the end of the bar.

pits e, as shown in Fig. 7.

be engaged to be securely held by a gripper having my improvement. Fig. 6 is a perspective view of the old style of gripper-jaws provided with conical pins or contact-points; and Fig. 7 is a perspective view of an ingot, illustrating how the old style of gripper must engage it to hold it in proper position for passage through a furnace-door.

My present improvement is adapted to mill appliancessuch, for instance, as shown in Letters Patent No. 412,851, granted to Kennedy'and Aiken October 15, 1889, and No. 428,301, granted to S. Forter May 20, 1890, in both of which are shown extension-bars or jibs a formed with jaws b at their extremities and provided with movable jaw-blocks c, mounted upon the bars and adapted to slide therealong toward or away from the fixed These bars extend from and are suitably supported by movable carriages or trolleys adapted to move in desired directions and to project the ends of the jibs into the heating-furnaces to deposit or withdraw ingots. these patents and in all the mechanisms of this nature now in general use are armed with conical-pointed spurs or pins, such as are shown at d in Fig. 6, and which when the jaws are closed upon the ends of an ingot gouge or dig into its body, making deep The doors of ingot-heating furnaces are usually made as small as possible to admit of convenient working through them in order to admit as little cold air as may be while the doors are opened for the passage of ingots, and in most cases the doors are of such dimensions as will barely admit the ingot and the appliance by which it is carried. It is therefore necessary that the ingots should be securely and properly grasped by the gripper and held in fair presentation for the opening through which it must pass. With conical spurs heretofore used the billet if not properly engaged by the spur is liable to roll on them and assume a canting position that would prohibit its passage through a furnacedoor. To avoid this, it is'necessary to en- The jaws in both gage the ingot at or near the points shown in Fig. 7that is, above the center of gravity represented by the horizontal line a: 00 and on or very near the vertical centers represented by the vertical lines 1 yso that it will hang suspended on the conical points in proper position. The operator has nothing butjudgment and practice to guide him in properly engaging, and with masses of metal more or less irregular, constantly varying in size, and located in highly-heated furnaces the misses come oftener than the correct hits. These misses necessitate the releasing of the ingot to change the application of the gripper-points to new spots, sometimes several changes being necessary before the proper hold is socured. This not only wastes the time of the operator and mechanism, but results in serious loss through the admission of much cold air and the cooling of the furnace. Another objection to the conical points is the slight hold they have on the ingots, particularly on large ingots, which when very hot and soft will by their weight tear away from the points and fall from the grippers, having deep scars in their surfaces, torn through by the points. These scars and even the ordinary deep pits 6 made by the conical points 01 are injurious to the ingots, as they form openings, which the subsequent rolling of the ingots will flatten, close, and lengthen, but never weld and heal, so that they form the origin of seams or cracks, which destroy the value of the plates to the full depth to which they extend and cause loss in the cutting off of large portions of the otherwise perfect and sound ends of plates. These three objectionsto wit, the difficulty of properly engaging the ingot to hold it in correct position, the tearing away of large heated ingots from the hold of the conical points, and the deep indentations and scars in the ingots caused by these points are what I seek to overcome by my inven tion, which consists in forming on each of the jaws of a gripper a long chisel-shaped point or edge f, which lie horizontally and contact with and bite into the ends of the ingots. These edges may be of any suitable length and may be formed integral with the gripperjaws or made separately and secured thereto in any suitable manner. By reason of their long contacts with an ingotjaws with myimprovement grip securely without biting deeply into it. They overcome entirely the danger of the tearing away of large heated ingots and they obviate the necessity for great particularity as to the points of engagement with the ingots to hold them securely against rolling or turning whilein the grasp of the gripper. This last pointis illustrated by Fig. 5, in which the points of contact 9 g are shown as being not only below the center of gravity of the ingot, but also slightly to one side of the vertical lines y 3 and yet the ingot cannot roll opening in the iron front or door-frame.

or turn on the long contacts as it would on conical pins similarly engaged. These long chisel-shaped contacts have a further advantage of not heating and wearing as do the conical points. The latter having small bulk penetrate deeply into the heated ingots and become rapidly heated and Worn by the contact, while withmy long edges the wearingsurface is greater, the penetration is less, and the greater mass of metal in proximity to the edges tends to keep them cooler byconducting away and absorbing the heat which the edges may acquire in their short periodic contacts with heated ingots. I also slope the inner opposing faces of the jaws up and back from the edges ff, as shown at h h, and find it effective in handling thin ingots or slabs. In such work the edges ff may slip in beneath a thin ingot, and as the jaws close in it will slip up their inclined faces until it contacts with the overlying portion of the beam (1, against which it will be securely held against rolling or canting while held by the gripper.

In the construction of ingot-heating furnaces heavy iron fronts and door frames are used, and the floor of the furnace is usually laid on a level with the bottom of the door- It frequently occurs, either through settling of the masonry or wear, that the floor sinks below the level of the door-openin g, leaving the lower edge of the opening in the frame at a distance above the floor. When inserting an ingot into a furnace, the movable jaw c of the gripper seldom passes entirely into the furnace or beyond the door-frame, and if the bottom edge of this jaw is straight, as shown in Fig. 6, it will contact with the raised ledge, which prevents its being lowered to the inner level of the floor. This sometimes compels the opening of the jaws and the release of the ingot while it is suspended away from the floor, to which it drops with results more or less damaging to the furnace. To overcome this objection, I form a curved indenta tion 2" in the bottom surface of the jaw, which will permit .its point or edge f to drop to the floor-level in depositing an ingot regardless of the difierences of level between the bottom of the opening and the floor-surface. This indentation 1 maybe made greater or less than shown in the drawings, as circumstances may require.

Having thus described my invention, what I claim, and desire to secure by Letters Pat cut, is

1. The gripper of a mill appliance having adjustable jaws provided with long horizontal contact edges substantially as described.

2. The gripper of a mill appliance having adjustable jaws provided with long horizontal contact edges which are made integral with the jaws subtantially as described.

. 3. The gripper of a mill appliance having adjustable jaws provided with long horizontal contact edges and having their opposed faces sloping upwardly and outwardly "from their respective edges as and for the purpose described.

4:. The gripper of a mill appliance having adjustable jaws provided with long horizontal contact edges and opposed, sloping faces,

the movable jaw also having a curved indentation in its lower surface substantially IO as set forth. a

In testimony whereof I have signed my name to this specification in the presence of two subscribing witnesses.

ELMER E. E. MEARS.

\Vitnesses:

WM. A. SKINKLE, J. H. VAN DERVEER. 

